


Dancing in the Street

by fairwinds09



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, My OTP, Pre-Relationship, and everything in between, gallya, music of the 1960s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairwinds09/pseuds/fairwinds09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hates American music. She adores it. Sometimes, it's a problem. </p><p>(in which everything is better with Motown, soul, and rock n' roll)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cry To Me

It starts with Solomon Burke.

* * *

 

He has always hated American music. For years, it was rare for a mission to involve him leaving the Soviet bloc, and when he did, he discovered that the sound of rock n’ roll grated on his ears. He can’t pinpoint what he doesn’t like about it—the wildness of it, maybe, the raw, primal grind of passions unleashed and sobriety cast aside. Maybe it’s just the rhythms, unstructured, lacking the clean precision that he’s used to. Maybe it’s the sheer freedom of it, the improvisation, the ability to create anything from anywhere, the refusal to adhere to strict (Soviet) rules of form and style—patriotism, simplicity, celebration of the proletariat. Whatever the reason, he hates it.

It should not have surprised him that the little chop-shop girl takes to it like a duck to water. He doesn’t know (and isn’t going to ask) if she already is familiar with the gritty soul ballad pouring out of the radio. But he strongly suspects that she is just the type of woman to have amassed a secret stash of Western records, hidden somewhere in her tiny apartment and meant to be played late at night, so softly that they could barely be heard—a small but dangerous rebellion in East Berlin.

He huffs in irritation as the singer’s voice rises to a crescendo, the music and the rustling of movement behind him making it impossible to concentrate on his game of chess. She’s getting tipsy, he can tell, and it’s making him nervous. He would rather die a thousand deaths than betray it, but _she_ makes him nervous—has had him off-balance since the moment she stared at him, big-eyed and resentful, in that dress shop in Berlin. He’s used to resentment, anger even, but the spark of something else simmering underneath her contempt had made the hair rise on the back of his neck. He hasn’t settled down since.

Behind him, the music throbs and pulses, and he pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers in frustration. He doesn’t know what she’s doing back there, and he doesn’t want to know. In the interests of the mission (never mind his own sanity), he wants to finish his game and quietly go to bed. He does _not_ want to think about her swaying to the music, eyes half-closed, mouth curved in a lazy smile. Nor does he want the insistent pounding of the bass to remind him of the thud of his pulse when he touched her earlier, his hands almost spanning her narrow waist, his ears pricked for the sharp hiss of breath that told him she felt the spark of that _something_ too. No matter how hard he tries to concentrate on the game, he can still smell the perfume of her hair, feel the softness of her skin as he folded her fingers around his ring. This ridiculous music—some idiotic American moaning about his baby leaving him all alone—just makes the memory stronger, more real. He can’t deal with it anymore.

Exasperated, he tosses down the piece he’s been considering and turns to confront her. What he sees stops him dead, just for a moment. She’s not just swaying—she’s _dancing_ , those absurdly large white sunglasses dwarfing her delicate face, her hips rolling fluidly, arms outstretched, fingers beckoning. And the look on her face—the teasing curve of her mouth, the tilt of that sharp little chin, the pure unfettered _joy_ of her—makes his stomach twist in something sharper than lust and softer than affection.

Out of desperation, he masks the moment of weakness with a show of annoyance.

“I am going to bed—please, turn this off,” he snaps, and makes to brush past her.

She stops him cold.

“No fun dancing by yourself,” she observes, voice husky and just this side of flirtatious. “I need a partner.”

She shoves those ludicrously oversized sunglasses on top of her head and looks up at him, brown eyes glinting with a combination of mischief and alcohol and something he can’t quite put his finger on. The spark that sizzled under his skin in the dress shop is snapping now, bright and hot like a downed wire, and he thinks he’d better get away from her before it burns them both.

“No,” he rasps, hoping she will leave it that and let him go.

Of course she does not. “No, as in you can’t dance—or you don’t want to?” she asks, and he can’t help but notice as she sways in from of him that, barefoot, she barely comes up to his shoulder. She is impossibly tiny, and on the list of things Illya Kuryakin does not do, three things are right at the top: Western music, dancing, and tiny, unpredictable women.

“We’ll call it both,” he sneers, his tone just patronizing enough to get under her skin. She will brush him off, he thinks, let the vodka and her clear dislike of him send her off in a fit of temper. She’ll be angry for a little while—

\--and then she reaches out and takes his hand, delicate fingers circling the broad wrist, and he’s sunk. Hopelessly, foolishly, recklessly sunk. She tosses her head, flicks her bangs out of her eyes, and brings her other hand up to hold his, moving him to the music with a surety he can never hope to copy. She’s smiling, clearly pleased, and it’s this (and only this) that lets her move him like a puppet, her small hands bracketing his much larger ones as she makes him clap.

He’s beginning to sink into the steady rhythm of the music when the crack of his own hand against his face snaps him out of it, sharply. She’s delighted with herself, he can tell, even as she murmurs patently false apologies, and he can’t help but laugh at her. Mercury in human form, that’s what she is—fluid and constantly in motion, impossible to predict, shining and beautiful. And when she tilts her head to the side, dimples flashing, and looks up at him through her lashes, he thinks for a single desperate moment that he would do anything, anything at all, to make her smile like that at him again.

The shock of the next slap hits him like being plunged abruptly into ice-water. He drops her hands and glares furiously, feeling like a damned fool. What game does she think she’s playing, this little East German mechanic? He’s KGB, for God’s sake, not some tame bear she can lead around on a string.

“You are not in East German chop-shop anymore,” he grits out between his teeth, still feeling the impact of his own hand stinging his cheek. Her smile this time is thinly-veiled malice as she picks up her abandoned glass and swirls the clear liquid with a steady hand.

“Still no drink?” she enquires, and he can almost see her fangs bared. His own temper flares—the desire to dominate, to control the situation, to corral her into something, someone, he can understand.

"Don’t make me put you over my knee,” he rumbles, and surprises himself with the empty folly of the threat. Then the other connotation of the words hits him, and he feels his ears turn red. God only knows what she’ll make of him now.

Apparently she takes it as a challenge.

“So you don’t want to dance,” she breathes, eyes flinty. She pulls off the glasses, drops them on the table. “But you do want to wrestle.”

This is not at all what he expected. “I did not say that—” he begins, because honestly, he can’t imagine fighting with an untrained girl half his size. A running start and two seconds later, he can’t imagine anything at all because she’s barreled full tilt into his solar plexus, and he’s trying to fall without letting her take the brunt of the impact.

He doesn’t really know why he’s surprised.

She fights fiercely, even if her technique is predictable, and he finds himself in the unenviable position of admiring her glowing cheeks and tumbled hair even as he dodges a well-placed elbow to the nose. Her fingernails almost make contact with his cheek before he rolls them again, knocking over the coffee table in the process, and their bodies are pressed so closely together that he can feel the furious breath she draws in before he hears it.

“You—are—holding—back,” she pants, writhing against him until he lets her loose out of self-preservation; if she shimmies those hips of hers beneath him one more time, he’s not going to be held responsible for what he might do.

“You—should not be—fighting someone—twice your size,” he grates out while he dodges a knee to the kidney. She’s impressively flexible (he will _not_ be distracted by envisioning how that quality might play out in other, less violent scenarios), and he is hard-pressed to avoid her kicks and punches without hurting her.

She actually growls at him, and then they’re back at it again, rolling across the floor, smashing lamps and vases in their wake, slamming against furniture to a chorus of soul and splintering wood. He _is_ holding back, terrified of snapping those fragile birdlike bones, but she makes it hard to not let loose everything he’s got. She’s all fire, his little mechanic, burning fast and hot and never asking for quarter, and the sight of her flushed and panting has arousal twisting sharp and hungry inside him.

The vodka is catching up with her, though, slowing her limbs and weighing down her eyes, and finally he lets her pin him down with only the barest effort, her arms held securely in his powerful hands, the only sounds in the room their harsh breathing and the wailing tenor drifting from the other room. Still moving to the music, she bobs and weaves above him, sliding lower and lower with every measure, until she’s hovering above him and their eyes lock and hold.

He can’t look away, not even when her hand slips and she jolts down, dangerously close to his face. Swallowing hard, he feels her other hand hit the carpet beside him, and now they’re almost nose-to-nose. In his head, the music fades away, and there’s nothing but Gaby’s heavy-lidded eyes, the drumming of her pulse beneath his fingers, and her lips, too near to his. He waits with coiled anticipation, lets her make the first move, and when she stretches out above him, so close he can almost taste her, his hands slide to her waist of their own volition. He can’t think, can hardly breathe, for the sheer _want_. It overtakes him.

When her lips graze his cheek, torturously slow, and then her head slowly droops and falls beside him, he can hardly believe his terrible luck. So close, he thinks, so close to what they both wanted, the desire running like a fast current under all the things that separate them—and then _this_. He lets his head fall to the carpet with a heavy sigh, feeling her weight warm and heavy on his chest. There’s nothing for it now but to put her to bed and then spend the night thinking about what might have happened if she hadn’t passed out just at that deeply inopportune moment.

He sits up slowly, holding her to his chest, her limbs loose and sprawled across his lap. (He wouldn’t mind being in this position again with a sober and fully aware Gaby, he thinks, and then flushes hotly at the thought. He has no business thinking such things about a woman who is, to all intents and purposes, currently dead to the world.) With a grunt of effort, he pushes to his feet, still holding her, and moves slowly over to her bed. Something in him is loath to put her down, to lose the sensation of delicate bones and surprisingly tough muscles wrapped around him, to no longer feel the brush of silky hair against his cheek. Nevertheless, he lays her down, tucks her in, and looks down at her, half-affectionate and half-bemused.

“Good night, little chop-shop girl,” he murmurs, resisting the urge to smoothe his hand over her hair, run his thumb along the curve of her cheek. He’s about to turn away, get ready for bed himself, when he feels a tug on his hand. Bewildered, he looks down. Her small hand is caught in his, as if to keep him there just a moment longer, and something in him that he thought was long dead twists painfully at the sight. He’d forgotten what this could feel like, this sudden fierce surge of tenderness that tightens like a band around his chest, makes his breath catch sharply in his throat. It’s at this precise moment that he realizes just how deeply in over his head he is—and it’s not even been a full day.

He needs to get away from this girl, and he needs to do it now.

She lets go of him after a moment, and he strides away like he’s fleeing the scene of a nuclear disaster. Moving on autopilot, he walks through the trashed living room, trying to ignore the awful mess they’ve made, and looks at the radio balefully.

It all started here, he thinks, glowering as he listens to a tenor voice croon, soulful and light— _I guess you’d say, what can make me feel this way? My girl, my girl, my girl…_ If it hadn’t been for that song, that thrice-damned song, he wouldn’t be in this mess—wouldn’t be entertaining dangerous feelings of tenderness for an East German defector that would be out of place in any good Russian citizen, let alone a hardened KGB agent. It was the music, he tries to convince himself—the music and the vodka and perhaps a little residual tension being released. It wasn’t real, and it isn’t going to be real, and that is final. It has to be.

He switches off the radio (perhaps with a little more force than strictly necessary) and stalks to the bathroom to change into his pajamas. He knows full well he won’t sleep well tonight, not with Gaby’s steady breathing beside him, not after he knows the weight and warmth of her in his arms, has felt her lips so close to his own, knows how she looks when she smiles—really smiles, has seen the instinctive joy that radiates from her when she dances. He always wants most what he can’t have, and she’ll be no different. He’s sure of it.

Oh, but he hates American music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this happened because I am addicted to this pairing and cannot seem to stop myself from writing fic about it, even with a WIP already in existence. I think I might need OTP therapy of some kind. ;)
> 
> I loved the music from the movie--Solomon Burke, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, it's all just wonderful. And I couldn't resist writing a fic centered around Gaby's love for Western music and Illya's extreme dislike of it. (Of course there's Gallya too. Naturally.)
> 
> Each chapter will be based on a song from the 1960s, although I'm not going to promise chronological accuracy. (Since the film is set in 1963 and contains songs from '65 and '69, I feel perfectly justified in doing so.) The first chapter is based on Solomon Burke's beautiful soul ballad from the film soundtrack--"Cry to Me."
> 
> [Incidentally, I know that everyone and their uncle has written something about the dancing/wrestling scene in the film. It's almost a requirement by now. But in my folly, I have taken a stab at it as well. Please note that I don't own the film. Or the dialogue, or the characters, or anything, really, except a deep and unyielding addiction to this ridiculous OTP. So kindly don't sue.]


	2. You Send Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small kitchens, cooking, and Aretha Franklin tend to have...intriguing results, particularly where the two of them are concerned. 
> 
> (in which Illya chops vegetables and tries to dance)

It intensifies with Aretha.

* * *

The mission in Istanbul goes well—so well, in fact, that on the flight back to headquarters in London, Waverly radios in that there’s been a change in plan, and they’re being diverted to Austria instead. There are more details—a set of compromising papers documenting a potentially disastrous trade agreement between a Saudi sheik and an extremely shady Austrian count who may or not be plotting against the United States government. There’s the count’s wife, who’s bored and possesses what Illya calls coldly “easy virtues.” And there’s a diplomatic soirée at which said papers might be acquired via a three-pronged effort at various levels. All in all, it sounds perfect suited for their…unique talents.

They are driven to a small apartment in a quiet residential section of Vienna. It’s a pleasant place—two stories, three bedrooms (much to Illya’s relief), with a hint of pre-War elegance in the architecture and furnishings. There’s no sign, at least on the surface, of the advanced technology behind hidden panels and floorboard compartments. It looks like a cosy, simple, average sort of residence, and Illya finds himself wondering exactly how they’re going to fare, cheek by jowl in this frighteningly close approximation of domestic comfort. It’s a far cry from their usual hotel suites, and the idea of sharing space this closely with anyone, even his partners, fills him with unease.

Solo immediately unpacks his luggage, freshens up, and disappears with a cryptic mumble about a contact in the Innere Stadt. Gaby leaves a note on the kitchen table that says she’s going shopping (the postscript directly warns Illya of the consequences if he tries to follow her for any reason whatsoever). So, he’s left to his own devices for several hours, which translates to unpacking the few belongings he brought with him (he always travels light; in the KGB, having too many possessions is asking for trouble), setting up his chessboard on the coffee table, and then pacing aimlessly, waiting for something he can’t quite figure out. He’s not used to living with anyone, he realizes abruptly, not used to fitting himself into the small daily rhythms of someone else’s life—work, shopping, schedules, routines. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be doing, how to accommodate himself to two other people when he’s so used to being alone.

After a few minutes, he can’t take the silence and the inactivity anymore. When all else fails, there’s always work. He heads upstairs to his room, where he’s spread out the files for this next mission on his bed. (He purloined them from Solo’s briefcase earlier in the afternoon, a feat of which he is justly proud. It was not an easy task.) Five minutes later, he’s deeply engrossed in the details of Count von Schönborn’s alleged activities. The good count has apparently been gambling heavily—more so than the family fortune will allow, and the deal with Prince Al-Amin offers him an opportunity to regain what he’s lost on horses and at the tables. This is Solo’s area of expertise, he thinks, running his thumb along the edge of a manila folder repetitively. (The fact that the count also has a weakness for pretty young brunettes is not something he prefers to think about.)

He’s intent on studying a diagram of the count’s country home, noting the security system’s weak points, when he hears the front door opening and closing one floor below. He had left his bedroom door open in order to hear anything happening on the ground floor, and now he stills, listening carefully until he hears the rustle of bags and the sound of Gaby’s footsteps in the hallway. Even though they’ve been working together for less than a month, he thinks he will remember the way she walks for the rest of his life. She has a swing in her step, a dancer’s grace, her weight shifted easily to the ball of her foot, never hard on the heel. (She only stomps when she’s furious, his Gaby.)

He keeps listening, even when he knows it’s just her, as she heads toward the kitchen and the bags land with a thump on the linoleum. He’s about to turn back to his diagram, force himself to concentrate, when he hears the telltale crackle of the radio being switched on. There’s the hiss of static as she moves between stations, and then big, bold chords roll out, the rhythm bouncing off the staid white walls of the apartment. A woman’s voice soars over snare and piano, the sound cheerful and bright, and he almost catches himself smiling before he remembers that he hates American music.

There won’t be any work done now, he thinks, and pushes himself off the bed to investigate what Gaby is up to in the kitchen. Part of him shrinks at the thought of being alone with her in this snug, homey little space, but he forces himself downstairs nonetheless. There were plenty of longing glances exchanged in Istanbul, moments when his hands lingered too long and she stepped a little closer to him than she had to, but they’d been with Solo nearly every moment of the op, and neither one of them had moved to finish what they’d started back in Rome. He doesn’t know what to do with the undercurrent of desire that runs between them—doesn’t know what might happen if he acts on it, and isn’t sure he dares to find out. He does know that she occupies a much greater portion of his concentration than he cares to admit.

As he makes his way downstairs, he can smell something rich and delicious wafting from the kitchen, and he allows himself a rare grin of satisfaction. He and Solo have been laying bets since Istanbul about whether or not she can (and will) cook, and it looks like he’s going to win. Satisfaction is very sweet, he thinks.

As he moves into the door’s sightline, he finds himself smiling for another reason entirely. She’s moving easily around the small kitchen, putting groceries away, stopping occasionally to stir whatever is cooking in a pan on the back burner—and then she stops for moment in the middle of the room and just dances, dipping and twirling, her little green flats clicking against the linoleum in perfect time. She moves with such ease, he thinks as he leans against the doorway to watch, her every step smooth and steady. It’s a cloudy day, and the light streaming in from the windows is cold and grey, but she glows with colour and energy, her whole body shimmying to the rhythm, head thrown back, face alight. He could watch her like this for hours.

The music swells to a crescendo, and she sets down the can she’s holding, raises her hands over her head, and pirouettes, singing along in her husky alto. “ _You send me, darling, you send me…honest you do, honest you do, honest you do..._ ” It’s so unexpected and so enchanting that he can’t help himself—he chuckles a little in surprised delight. The sound is quiet, almost lost in the music, but she hears it anyway and whirls toward the doorway, her mouth falling open as she sees him standing there.

“You’ve been listening!” she accuses, hands falling to her sides, and, if he’s not much mistaken, there’s a blush creeping up over her cheeks. He doesn’t bother hiding the smile—it’s too late anyway.

“Is a small house,” he points out, which doesn’t really answer the question. She glares at him and holds up the can like a weapon.

“You are sneaky,” she says reprovingly, and he wonders for a moment if she plans to lob the can at his head.

“I have been trained to move very quietly,” he says, and she huffs sharply and turns around, bending down to store the can in a bottom shelf of the small pantry. (He tries to not notice the curve of her bum when she bends over, he really does, but there’s only so much self-control a man can exercise, even in the KGB. Those pedal pushers she’s wearing leave very little to the imagination.) When she stands up again, she props a hand on her hip, shoots another glare at him, and then crooks one finger, imperiously.

“What?” he asks, because he’s not sure what she wants and if there’s anything he’s learned so far about Gaby Teller, it’s that she never does what he expects.

“You can help, or you can dance,” she says, coolly commanding. “One or the other.”

He shrugs and moves away from the doorway. “You know that I don’t dance.”

“Won’t dance,” she corrects him, and presses a spatula into his hand. “Don’t let that beef stick to the bottom of the pan.”

He obediently pokes at the simmering beef and onions, wondering what this is and where she learned the recipe. She has saved his life twice, betrayed him once, and he still knows so little about who she is beyond the stark black-and-white facts contained in her file. He finds himself filled with curiosity about her, constantly.

She is clattering around in the sink behind him, and he can hear her humming along to the music, slightly off-key. The song has changed, but the sound is still the same—something sunny and as vivid as the coral scarf she’s tied around her hair. He shifts slightly at the stove and bumps into her unexpectedly.

“Sorry,” he mutters, feeling the contact like an electric shock along his side, and chances a glance over at her. She’s smiling smugly as she measures out spices into a little glass bowl on the counter.

“Looks like we’ll end up dancing anyway,” she observes. He snorts.

“I do not think so. Kitchen is made for cooking, not for this—what do you call it? The Twist?”

She laughs, bright and delighted. “I didn’t know you knew what the Twist was,” she says, and holds up a stalk of celery, freshly washed. “Here, you chop this while I stir.”

“I know much more about it than you think,” he observes calmly as he moves to the island in the middle of the room and obediently dices celery into neat rows. He’s not much of a cook, but he is good with a knife—albeit usually under somewhat different circumstances. She ponders his statement for a moment, and then turns from stirring her concoction to glance up at him from under her lashes.

“Oh, really?” she purrs, and he suddenly wishes he did not have a sharp object in his hand. He has learned to be wary when she uses that tone of voice. “So you know Western dance moves, but you hate their music, hmm?”

He sees the trap, but for the life of him, can’t figure out a way around it. For someone who holds an International Master title in chess, he is, as Waverly would put it, not having a very special day. (He blames this on Gaby’s perfume, entirely.)

“Yes,” he responds, cautiously, and hands her the diced celery as a distraction. She tips it into the pot with one hand and pins him with a pitiless stare.

“I think you’re faking,” she says after a long moment, one eyebrow rising in an unmistakable challenge. “You would never learn how to do a decadent American dance move. You’d think it was a betrayal of your sober Soviet values. You—” she pauses, points at him with her spatula, “—you are just going to have to prove it.”

He stares at her. Surely, _surely_ , she has not challenged him to what—a dancing competition? It is absurd. She cannot mean it.

Two seconds tick by, three, and she manages to hold his gaze for another beat before she cracks. Suddenly she’s snickering at him, unashamed, fingers held to her lips as she laughs.

“That was beautiful,” she gasps, still rocking with laughter. “Your _face_. You actually believed me.”

He can feel the flush creep up his neck and over his ears. “You are mocking me,” he grumbles, and reaches for the carrots she’s holding. She snatches them out of reach.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she says, and he recognizes that glint in her eyes from their first night in Rome. This is trouble. “We’re not doing anything else until you dance with me, my secretive Russian friend. You’ve made your claim—it’s too late to back out now.”

She moves toward him, and he almost takes a step back before he forces himself to hold his ground. She’s right in front of him now, so close that he can feel the warmth of her body through his clothes, can count each individual eyelash. She tips her head back and looks up at him, and with a start he feels her fingers curl around his, prying the kitchen knife out of his hand. The drumming in his ears almost drowns out the clatter as it falls, unheeded, on the counter.

“Ready?” she whispers, holding his hand securely as her other arm twines around his neck. She’s so much shorter than he is that he realizes she’s standing on tiptoe to reach, and without thinking, he bends down to make it easier for her. She hums in approval and waits for him to put his arm around her, nestling her head into the curve of his shoulder when he does. He can hardly breathe.

“That’s right,” she murmurs in his ear, the sensation of her lips against his skin nearly making him moan aloud. “And then…we move.”

She sways against him, slowly, out of time with the music on the radio. He doesn’t notice, so lost in her, small and solid and willing in his arms. He’s been waiting for this since the moment she took his hands in hers in a hotel room in Rome, waiting for her to be brave, make the first move, force him out of his shell of distance and reserve.

“Illya,” she whispers, and the sound of his given name on her lips makes something clench inside him, something hungry and raw. “You have to move with me, _ja_? This is not a solo activity.”

He can’t help it—even in the haze of sensory overload he’s currently experiencing, it’s still funny.

“On the contrary,” he tells her solemnly, only the telltale crinkle of his eyes giving away his amusement. “I think Cowboy very much enjoys this sort of thing.”

She lifts her head from his shoulder and laughs out loud, which makes his chest bloom with foolish, ridiculous pride.

“You’re much more fun when you’re dancing,” she informs him, her head tipped to the side as she surveys him with fond approval. He holds her gaze as the moment spins out, turns quiet and charged, and he wonders if she can read his desperate hunger for her in his eyes.

“Much more fun,” she whispers, the words fluttering against his mouth, and then she stops swaying to the music and leans in. His heart pounds violently, his hands freeing themselves and rising to bracket her face, thumbs sweeping over her delicate cheekbones.

“Gaby,” he hears himself mutter, the sound torn from deep in his chest, and he swears he sees her pupils dilate at the rasp of his voice.

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, fiercely, and pounces. Finally she’s kissing him, furious and sweet, both arms wrapped around his neck, and he’s just begun to taste the richness of her, just started to crush her against him, every curve burned into his skin, when they hear the clatter of the front door opening and the clack of Solo’s shoes against the hardwood floor.

“Someone’s stew is burning,” they hear him call from the living room, and they jerk back from other, guiltily. She’s breathing hard, he notices through the frustrated stupor of arousal, and there’s a bright spot of colour in both cheeks.

“It’s mine,” she calls back, and she steps away from him, slowly, trailing a hand down his sleeve as if unwilling to let him go. He stares at her, dumbly pleading, and she flashes him the slightest of reluctant smiles before she turns back to the stove and goes about trying to rescue her meal.

Seconds later, Solo’s standing in the doorway, eyes flicking from Gaby’s flushed face to Illya’s shaking hands (he is trying to chop the carrots and failing utterly). Something like a smirk slides across his face and is promptly erased by Gaby’s furious look.

“I brought the wine you requested,” he says, smoothly, and ignores the crackle of discomfort in the room as he deposits the bottle on the table and leans elegantly against the sink. “I didn’t know you could cook, Teller.”

Gaby is scrubbing a potato with much more force than necessary. “I lived on my own for five years, Solo,” she snaps. “How do you think I survived—getting takeout?”

He grins and reaches out to toy with the ends of her ponytail; Illya’s fingers clench hard around the knife. “That means I owe Peril here ten pounds,” he says ruefully. “Pity.”

She smacks at his exploring fingers. “You bet against me?”

“I had no choice. Peril had such faith in your abilities I was forced to take the other side.”

She huffs, and behind them, Illya swears in Russian under his breath as his hand slips and he nearly slices his thumb. The American shoots an amused glance in his direction, wanders over the stove, and sniffs inquisitively.

“Can I help?” he enquires, and Gaby’s scowl eases slightly.

“Here,” she says, the beginnings of a thaw in her voice as she slides another pot in his direction. “Put the meat in this and start sautéing the vegetables in the broth. You do know how to sauté, I assume?”

There’s a bite to her words, but Solo doesn’t seem to mind. He follows her instructions, and for a moment, there are no sounds in the little kitchen but the hiss of the cooking vegetables and the radio in the corner. Illya finishes the carrots and hands them over, then stands for a moment with nothing to do, heart still thudding uncomfortably and hands unsteady. He wants nothing more than to grab her away from her potatoes, swing her onto the kitchen counter, and finish what they started, but Solo is standing not two feet away and he’s forced instead to stare miserably at the clean line of her back and imagine what would have happened if they’d been left alone just for a minute more. He’s so lost in the fantasy (Gaby sitting on the counter, legs wrapped around his waist, that mouth of hers making him forget everything he’s ever known) that he jumps at the sound of his name, snapped out like the crack of a whip.

“ _Illya_ ,” and no, there’s nothing breathy or affectionate about it now, “get a move on. The table’s not going to set itself.”

He sets out the plates and glasses in a daze, trying to ignore the flashes of coral and green in his peripheral vision, and attempts to breathe normally.

It is quite possibly the longest dinner of his life.

* * *

 

It’s much later that night, after an uncomfortably silent evening spent re-reading through the files on von Schönborn (Illya), flicking through auto magazines (Gaby), and perusing the latest copy of _Vogue_ for the Paco Rabanne fall collection (Solo). He has retired to his room early, rationalizing that they have an early phone briefing with Waverly tomorrow morning, and he needs to be at the top of his game. Really, he just can’t take sitting opposite from Gaby anymore, listening to her little hums of approval as she ticks off models she particularly likes with Solo’s fountain pen. She likes to lie on her stomach on the carpet, ankles crossed in the air, chin propped in her hand; after the afternoon they shared, he can’t stop his traitorous brain from turning that pose into other, less innocent ones. It’s torture, pure and simple.

Past midnight, now, and he stands at his window, staring through the crack in the blinds at the lamplit street below. (He’s still careful to not stand directly in front of the aperture. Years of KGB training die hard.) Hours later, and he can still feel her slim waist under his hands, can feel like a phantom pain the softness of her cheeks under his palms, can see those wide brown eyes locked on his like he’s the beginning and end of her world. He knows better—knows that it was a foolish moment, a risk they cannot afford to take on a mission that offers too many risks already. Knows that he’s not the logical choice—if she absolutely has to have a lover on her own team, Solo is a much smarter alternative. And yet…and yet.

He runs his fingers over his own mouth, the sensation making him shiver as he remembers the feel of her mouth, the fierceness of her kiss. She kisses the way she walks, the way she dances—grace and anger and flame all wrapped into one. It’s addictive, and he’s scared that he won’t be able to walk away from this one intact. He’s more scared that she won’t be able to either.

With a sigh, he turns away from the window and begins to get ready for bed. He is a disciplined, hardened agent, he reminds himself, and he can make himself forget what it felt like to hold the woman who’s sleeping two doors down. He can, and he will. But he cannot seem to turn off the song that keeps running through his head, the one that she danced to in the middle of a tiny kitchen, her beef stew simmering on the stove and her partner watching from the shadows.

“ _Darling, you send me…honest you do now, honest you do…_ ”

He will never survive Gaby Teller and her American music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An unexpectedly quick update! Apparently, this 'ship has me by the throat and won't let go. (You understand.)
> 
> A few quick and fairly minor notes--Aretha Franklin's "You Send Me" wasn't released until 1968, but, as previously stated, I'm cheerfully going out of chronological order with this fic. I have no idea if Paco Rabanne's fall collection would have appeared in an edition of Vogue and I'm not particularly worried about its accuracy--I just like the idea. There is an actual Austrian family of noble descent named von Schönborn; please note that the character of the shady count is entirely fictional and in no way based on any members of that particular family, whom I am sure avoid illegal activities religiously. The recipe I describe in the chapter is actually a German recipe for beef stew (if the internet is to be believed); it's called Pfefferpotthast and sounds absolutely delicious.
> 
> Finally, you may (legitimately) feel that I have somewhat overplayed Illya's discomfort with living in a more or less domestic situation, given that he had already spent two missions staying in the same hotel room as at least one of his colleagues. However, considering his background, I surmise that he would see this situation as markedly different from the impermanence and impersonal nature of a hotel. Feel free to disagree with me. ;)
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kudos and comments--they make this process so much more delightful. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


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